U.S. supports Honduran government despite violent crackdown on protesters
listen

Union busting, deregulation of private industry and silencing of dissent are on the laundry list of beefs many US citizens have about the new Republican leadership in statehouses like Florida, Ohio and Indiana. Working people in one of the poorest countries in the Western Hemisphere are railing against their US-supported governmentâs anti-labor policies.

An estimated 300 people have died suspiciously in Honduras since a 2009 military coup that replaced democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya with current president Pepe Lobo. Since then, says University of California at Santa Cruz Honduras scholar Dana Frank, the countyâs labor policies have reshaped largely in favor of industry. The government is trying to privatize schools and do away with teacher pensions. In a recent piece in The Nation, Frank says a law proposed last year would severely hurt Honduran workersâ rights.

And it converts an enormous amount of
full-time work into part-time work,
under the obviously ridiculous concept
that that's gonna create more jobs,
and once it's part-time work you're
not eligible to organize a union, so
direct attack on the labor movement.
And just so people can see how bad
this is, the law also says an employer
under this program can pay their
workers 30 percent of their pay in
company scrip, which means you
wouldn't even get real money.

That law, known as the Law of Economic Crisis, hasnât passed, but the president is still reportedly dragging his feet on setting a minimum wage. The US is the biggest consumer of Honduran exports, which include clothing, coffee, auto parts, shrimp, bananas, palm oil, and gold. Honduras is second only to Haiti in poverty throughout the Western Hemisphere. Frank says conditions for workers here, most of them young, are deplorable.

This is coming out of the
maquiladoras, there are about 120,000
workers on the north coast that work
in these factories that are
tremendously exploited and almost
completely non-union. Young people
work in them. They get very sick,
because there's almost no
environmental regulations, they also
lose their eyesight often, and the
communities of the north coast are
full of young people in their 20s
whose health has already been wrecked
by working in these maquiladoras who
don't observe basic labor rights, and
who are tremendously repressive.

Former president Zelaya angered industry leaders with pro-labor policies like raising the minimum wage by 60 percent and expanding social programs. Left-leaning UK paper The New Statesman reports political instability ensued in the wake of the 2009 coup and election that delivered the presidency to Lobo which caused a 46 percent reduction in foreign capital investment. Last week the country held its âHonduras is Open for Businessâ conference to attract reinvestment, but Frank says the country isnât any more stable than it was before.

The repression of the opposition and
of journalists has really continued,
in fact, it's escalated in the last
two months two worse levels than the
period right after the coup. So if
people think things have gotten
better, in fact it's actually worse.

Members of a broad coalition called the Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular, or National Front of Popular Resistance held a nationwide after the Honduran congress passed a law opening the door for privatization of schools. The Frente consists of members of the womenâs, gay rights, labor, and indigenous movements, among others. Though they faced brutal repression during demonstrations, the group also protested the Open for Business event. Frank said these also turned violent.

People who were trying to demonstrate
peacefully against the conference wear
tear-gassed at least three times,
including a peaceful concert by
students was tear-gassed. A journalist
covering the repression was shot at
close range and arrested. And they're
now using tear gas as lethal force
against not only these demonstrations,
but huge demonstrations that went on
throughout March and early April
against the total privatization of the
Honduran education system.

Open for Business attendees included former Colombian president Alvaro Uribe and Mexicoâs Carlos Slim, the richest man in world. Former President Bill Clinton was scheduled to speak, but canceled. Frank said the US government has supported the current Honduran leadership, and claimed that it didnât know it was a military coup, even though a Wikileaks cable later indicated the US was well aware. She said the Obama administrationâs approach is right in line with the Cold War policies of Ronald Reagan.

He's recognizing a very clearly
repressive regime that's using tear
gas as lethal force against its own
citizens. There are no paths to a
legitimate input onto this government,
and the very same military figures
that launched the coup are key figures
in the government.

She added that itâs an odd coincidence that the incoming ambassador to Honduras happens to be an expert in biofuels.

So why would an administration that ostensibly embraces human rights support a government that brutally represses its people?

Frankly, this is the logic of
capitalism. Look for the place with
the cheapest labor cost, and try to
find a place where the state is not
going to have environmental
regulations or expect you to respect
labor laws. As a person who studies
the labor movement, that's what the
labor movement does the opposite of
that. It says, "Wait a minute, you
have to have some legal structures
around the economy, you have to
guarantee basic labor rights as human
rights, and you have to let people
have a dignified living and a
dignified daily life."

A Honduran American Chamber of Commerce official said President Lobo is focusing on creation of investment to generate employment by establishing the legal framework to gain confidence of domestic and national investors. Frank said if that sounds familiar to people living in states like Florida, Wisconsin and Ohio, it does for good reason.

We're next. In fact, we're already on
the list. In Wisconsin, in Ohio, in
Florida, in California, this is what
they have in mind for us everywhere,
because this is how you get the
highest rate of profit out of working
people.

WMNF reached out to the US State Department, the Honduran Consulate, and the Latin American Trade Coalition, but none returned requests for comment by air time.

Comments

Petites histoires...
Glenn Pendergrass about almost 4 years ago
KATEâ¦ this is one of the best stories that has come from the âReal News Radioâ team at WMNF!!! President Clinton, ready to hang out with murders and thieves. President Reagan and President Obama marching in lockstep (together) with spit-shined hobnailed boots in âCathedral Squareâ!!! Coup dâetatsâ¦ hundreds of suspicious killingsâ¦ guvment oppressionâ¦ corporate intrigueâ¦ and Wikileaks!!! The only thing missing was a love interest!!! Ohâ¦ wait a minuteâ¦ that was in there alsoâ¦ everybody LOVES to blame US!!!

I'm confused...
Glenn Pendergrass about almost 4 years ago
Iâve heard that the discontent within the âNational Front for Popular Resistanceâ (FNRP), is so pervasive that the FNRP is blowing itself up from within. Splinter groups like the Frente Amplio Electoral en Resistencia (FAER), or "Broad Electoral Front in Resistance" and the âForum for Liberal Unificationââ¦ has formed due the growing intolerance by the leadership of FNRP towards the âLiberals within the Resistanceâ!!! Sooooâ¦ if the leadership of the âNational Front for Popular Resistanceâ is intolerant of the âLiberals within the Resistanceââ¦ wouldnât that make the FNRP a conservative or right wing organization???